We rode to the next chamber, one thankfully free of chasms, bridges, or lava pools. My anger had shrunk into a dull, aching roar behind my forehead. We dismounted, and this time, so did Farmathr. I no longer had the urge to smash my knuckles on his cheekbone, but I kept a distinct distance between us nonetheless.
“Now, tell us what this is all about,” said Meuhlnir.
“I have been…” started Farmathr.
“The bastard’s been working for the Dark Queen all the while,” snapped Althyof. “That last chamber was a trap. He was to lead Hank across, and the bridge would collapse under the next one to step foot on it.”
Veethar turned on Farmathr, eyes burning yellow, rage dancing on his face. “The act of a coward.”
Farmathr nodded. “I can’t dispute that.”
“Only one thing to do,” growled Mothi. Farmathr jumped at the sound Mothi’s axe made coming out of its scabbard.
“No,” I said, trying to sound confident, calm. “We still need him to get into the Herperty af Roostum.”
“Hank, there must be another—”
“Yeah? What is this other way? Do you know the way out of here? Do any of you?” I looked from face to face, seeing anger at Farmathr, but also frustration at the neat way we were forced to keep him with us.
“How do we know this isn’t part of the plan? To lull us with the false admission of a trap?”
“I’m not—” began our erstwhile guide.
“You shut up,” growled Veethar.
“We can never know with the Dark Queen,” I said. “We thought we were so clever, hiding in a caravan, trekking through the Great Forest of Suel. You were waiting for us, weren’t you?”
Farmathr nodded.
“And the Black Queen knew we’d be coming that way?”
“She planned your route.”
“What does that mean?” snapped Mothi.
“The dragons of the sea to keep you from sailing south to Kleymtlant. The tretyidnfukl to make you try to outwit her, to keep you from taking the pass, and maybe skirting the Great Forest. Once you were within its bounds, she could use the spiders to drive you.”
“And use Ivalti’s army to drive us closer to the mountains?”
“Yes,” said Farmathr. “The army kept you from seeking the port, or from riding up the coast. Ivalti almost ruined it with his antics, but it worked out in the end.”
“And why make us exit the travel network early?” asked Meuhlnir.
“Queen Hel—”
“Do not use that name in my presence,” snapped Freya, taking one menacing step toward him.
“Uh, the Dark Queen hoped that the…uh, wildlife would... She hoped that… She laid traps…”
“She hoped some of us would perish,” scoffed Meuhlnir. “Skirting it doesn’t make your culpability any less.”
“I don’t… That is, I’m not trying to lessen my culpability in this.”
“Could have fooled me,” muttered Althyof.
“So now, we are off the bitch’s script?” demanded Jane. “She has no idea where we are?”
Farmathr’s gaze fell to the floor. “I’m not sure.”
Althyof made a choking noise, one hand gripping a dagger hilt until his tendons creaked with the strain.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Out with it, Farmathr.”
He locked eyes with me. “Can you… Can you call me John, please? John Calvin Black. That is my true name. What my mother and father named me.”
“Fine. Whatever you want. Tell us.”
“I don’t…I can’t say for sure.” His eyes stole toward Freya without quite getting to her face. “The Dark Queen once said in my hearing that she always knows where her little sister is, anywhere on the face of Osgarthr.”
All eyes turned to Freya, who blushed a deep crimson. “She never mentioned this to me.”
Pratyi shrugged and wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “She lies. We all know this. The Dark Queen lies as much as she speaks.”
“Even if she’s not lying about that, she never told me. I didn’t do anything,” said Freya.
“No, dear,” said Meuhlnir. “You are not to blame.”
“If she knows where Freya is, does she perceive who she’s with?” I asked.
Farmathr—John—turned his palms up and shook his head.
“The extent of your knowledge is that she claims to know where Freya is.” He nodded. “Nothing else? Nothing you’ve…forgotten?”
“I don’t want to be this way,” John muttered. “I have been shaped this way.”
Jane scoffed. “And what does that mean? You were born evil? That’s a load of—”
“You misunderstand me. I was…remade in Vowli’s image.”
I failed to suppress a sigh. “You’d better explain.”
“When they… I first met the Dark Queen, Vowli, and Luka in Mithgarthr…in New York, near my home. One of them—either Vowli or Luka, I never learned which—began hunting in the woods near my village. I was friendly with the local Onondowaga village, and with their help, we tracked the beast. That’s when the horror started because they seemed to view it as an invitation to—”
“Is there an end to this fairy tale?” demanded Althyof.
“I promise you—this is no mere tale.”
“Make it a short telling.”
“Fine. The three had adopted the role of ancient deities in the Onondowaga legends: Awenhai, or Skywoman, and the twins, Otentonnia and Tawiskaron. According to the legends, the three had haunted the area for hundreds of years, stalking, killing, and eating the Onondowaga.”
“This is short?” grumbled Althyof.
“When we decided we had to fight them, we, the militia of the white village and the braves of the Onondowaga village, set out to find them. They tricked us and attacked my village while we searched for them half a day’s ride to the west. They kidnapped my sister-in-law and my nephew.” He swallowed convulsively and glanced at Sig. “Mark was his name. They killed my brother—” His voice cracked, and he ducked his head. “I had to make a pact to save my nephew and my greatest friend. I… I had to eat the flesh of a dead warrior, so the Dark Queen would heal my friend and release my nephew.”
“Itla sem Yetur.” I murmured. “Briethralak Oolfur.”
“How far has it gone?” demanded Meuhlnir.
John shook his head. “I resisted…for a long time. I…I refused to eat. I killed myself countless times, but Vowli…he’s mastered life and death, and every time, he brought me back from the dead. He called me Owtroolekur—unbeliever—and imprisoned me in the dungeon beneath Helhaym.”
“That was you? How can that be?”
John gazed at me with sad eyes. “Yes. You saw the beginning of my true fall from grace.”
I gasped, fear and disgust swirling in my guts. “Edla?”
He nodded, sad-eyed and grim-faced. “She wasn’t there to serve me food. She was there to serve as food.”
“You ate her?” demanded Jane.
“You must understand that—”
“No. I don’t have to understand anything.” Her eyes blazed, and her hand drifted to the head of her business axe hanging in her belt.
“They would not allow me to… I couldn’t…” John shook his head, sadness and regret written in every line of his expression.
“How can this be? I dreamed about this mere days ago. You were already with us!”
“Dreams are not bound by time and place, Hank,” murmured Frikka.
I shook my head. “How long ago?”
John raised his shoulders and let them fall. “I only wish I knew. Calendars and years lose their importance when life stretches on and on.”
“But a long time?”
“Oh, yes. And once I…fell in line, they had things for me to do. Tasks to further the cause.”
“Such as?” demanded Veethar.
John glanced at him and away again. “They kept me in Fankelsi at first, tending to the local population, managing the karls. After that, they sent me to this continent. A people live far to the north. Malformed people. The Dark Queen wanted them as subjects. She sent me to subjugate them, though in practice all I had to do was offer them a way to survive—to thrive—in the sparse conditions in which they live. I brought them the knowledge of—”
“Itla sem Yetur.” Meuhlnir’s head was down so I couldn’t see his expression, but I got the feeling he was nearing the point of losing control.
“Well, yes,” said John. “In their case, it was that or watch them all starve to death. To my mind, it was the lesser of two evils to teach them layth oolfsins.”
“Was it?” said Meuhlnir with an edge to his voice.
“That’s what you call it? The way of the wolf?”
John nodded.
“Cannibalism by any other name…” muttered Jane. “It’s not sweet.”
“There were other tasks. I sailed to the other continents for her, to determine if people thrived there. I ran the preer to many other realms, serving as spy, as merchant, as diplomat. Many things, many years of service.”
“You couldn’t break their grasp on you?”
“I could not,” he said. “To my eternal shame.”
“Then what has changed?” asked Sif.
His eyes strayed to Sig. “I swore my oath to the Dark Queen—gave up my faith, my humanity—to save one boy. I couldn’t stand to cause another boy’s death. I couldn’t break Hank’s family the way mine was broken.”
The cavern fell silent in the wake of that, and John sighed like a man who had nothing to live for. “You have to understand,” he said into the silence. “I didn’t think I had any choice. I had no way to return to my home, no way to break away from the darkness, from the Briethralak Oolfur…from Vowli. They…they kept me down there in the dark…until I…until I killed Edla—until I ate from her body. I don’t have any idea how long they kept me down there—I’d been there a long time before he brought Edla. He brought her because I refused to eat the…the meat he brought me. I starved myself rather than give in to what he demanded. He thought her…freshness would tempt me.” No one spoke, no one moved. John looked around, seeing only hard faces and cold glares. “They broke me, down there in the darkness. A man named John Calvin Black went down into that pit of despair, but only I came out—a husk of a man with no name, no past. Nothing but the Dark Queen’s will.”
Meuhlnir scoffed and turned away. “Pointless,” he muttered.
“What about redemption, Meuhlnir?” I asked at just above a whisper. “Have you changed your mind?”
He whirled on me, eyes blazing. “That’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?” I cocked my eyebrow and flashed a mordant smile at him.
He shook his head. “Luka is—”
“Your brother,” I said. “Is that the only thing that makes his situation different from John’s?”
Meuhlnir scythed his hand through the air. “Enough of this! It gets us nowhere.” He glared at John. “Be forewarned, Farmathr or John or Owtroolekur or whatever you want us to call you next. You will not break the Ayn Loug again, or you will face my hammer.”
John ducked his head but nodded. “I…I’m not sure I remember how to live contrary to layth oolfsins any longer. I—”
Mothi took an angry step closer to him, eyes blazing. “You’d better start remembering how,” he growled.
“Don’t you think I want to?” pleaded John. “I hate what they’ve made me into! I hate the things I’ve done. It’s easy for you all to judge me, but you don’t understand what it was like to be under her spell. I can’t even remember the last time I did something that was my idea!”
“Back there on that bridge,” I said.
He looked at me, breathing hard, for the space of five heartbeats, then nodded. “I guess I did.”
“It was the first step,” said Freya. “What remains is divorcing yourself from her influence, from Vowli’s teachings.”
Meuhlnir scoffed.
“Redemption, remember?” I said. “Let John be your brother’s test case. Help him as you would help your brother.”
“Redemption!” spat Althyof. “The best redemption is the grave, Hank.”
“When I first came to Osgarthr, I thought the same way. I thought Luka and the Black Bitch had to die for their crimes back on Mithgarthr and for daring to take my family from me. But a wise man pointed out that everyone can change.”
Meuhlnir’s eyes sought mine, softening a little. His gaze pinged back and forth between my two eyes until, finally, he nodded.
“Let’s all agree to give John a chance to prove what he says. The preer will not open themselves while we sit here and argue.”
“Let’s get moving,” said Althyof after a long sigh.
“No,” said Freya. “I can’t take the risk that my sister will see the party’s location because of me. I can’t continue to travel with you.”
“Now, wait a minute—”
“No, Hank. No. I will stay here, in these caverns until you’ve succeeded.”
“Wife, please reconsider—”
“Husband, don’t argue,” she said with a smile. “You never win.”
“Freya, this isn’t necessary,” I said. “If she sees you, she sees you.”
“Besides,” said Jane, “what’s the difference if she sees you in these tubes or with us inside the Herperty af Roostum?”
“If she sees me inside, she will know you are inside, and she will bring her army. But, if she sees me wandering around in these tubes, she will continue to believe the tunnels have confounded us, that we can’t find our way inside. My sister will think the plan to separate Hank from the rest of us has succeeded. She will think he is vulnerable, but no threat and will leave her army to guard the entrance to Pilrust. She will come for him, but with only a small segment of her forces.”
“But—”
“I will not be coming with you. If anyone wants to stay and keep me company, I wouldn’t mind. Husband?” She gazed at him with a twinkle in her eye and a faint smile on her lips.
“Of course,” said Pratyi.
“What if other dangers await you in the tubes? Other traps? More fire demons for instance.”
She turned her gigawatt smile on me. “I’m not helpless, and neither is Pratyi. We survived without you before we met.”
I shook my head. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to,” said Freya. “It is our choice, our responsibility. We will see you soon.” She mounted her horse, and Pratyi did the same.
“Maybe we should split the party more evenly?” I said.
“John, Althyof, Yowtgayrr, Meuhlnir, Mothi, Veethar, and I could go on and—”
“Yowrnsaxa, may I borrow one of your cooking pots?” said Jane. “He needs a smack to the head.”
“Jane, if we—”
“Still talking?” she said with a crooked smile.
“And you don’t get to decide what Sif and I do any more than the great lout over there does,” said Yowrnsaxa. “We can’t let him go on alone. There’s no telling what trouble he will get himself into.”
Arguing with them was pointless, so I gave it up. I turned to Freya with a smile. “Don’t go far. You should follow us toward the entrance to Herperty af Roostum. We can send word when it no longer matters if the Dragon Queen knows where you are.”
Freya inclined her head. “No. It is better that we find our way out of these tubes and head toward Suelhaym. My sister may think you’ve given up.”
“Even so, we’ll mark our passage, in case you change your mind.”
“There’s no need, Hank. If you think about this rationally, you will understand that I am right. Frikka and Veethar can contact us if something changes.”
I nodded, thinking of Jax and his fluorescent paint on the walls of Luka’s abattoir with profound sadness. “Still, we will mark the path.” I glanced over at Slaypnir. “John, will the horses be able to go inside the complex with us?”
John started as if he’d been lost in his own thoughts. “Oh! No, they won’t fit through the door we will use.”
“I thought as much,” I said. “Freya and Pratyi should take the horses with them. There’s nothing for them to eat here.” Veethar nodded and waved us away from the horses. “The rest of us should get moving. How much farther, John, if we go on foot?”
“Another day, perhaps, if we walk fast.”